HCI Hardware Toolkits

This list contains toolkits that allow researchers and designers to quickly create and explore new interaction techniques and device designs.

The toolkits are all available commercially, as open source, or as advanced research projects. We have used many of them in our own projects and classes. The list is sorted roughly in order preference, listing the toolkits I find most promising first.

The open-source iStuff Mobile environment, developed by our PhD student Tico Ballagas, helps integrating these various hardware toolkit into a software environment that lets you quickly prototype distributed interactive environment scenarios and phone-based interactions.

If you are an undergraduate or graduate student, researcher or faculty in Human-Computer Interaction, product design or a related discipline, you can use these toolkits to get from an idea for a new interactive device to a working prototype for evalation more quickly.

Presentation: Physical UI Toolkits & Arduino, by Jan Borchers, for the Ubicomp / Campus of the Future Research Group, UCSD, January 23, 2008.

Spritzer: A hardware Arduino simulator for the Fritzing environment.

Arduino (Open Source)

Open-source toolkit that lets you build standalone controllers with our without a PC connection, using an ATmega168 microcontroller. Different board designs are available, but no sensors; you have to hook up your own. Presented at CHI 2007. Amazingly affordable ($35 for their latest "Diecimila" USB board) and incredibly easy to program (no PROM burning), with software for Mac OS X, Linux and Windows. When I got my board, I had it plugged into USB, written a test app in the provided C-like Processing language IDE on my Mac, and a running standalone "Hello World" blinking LED within ten minutes. Currently, this system is my top recommendation. Get a Prototyping Shield as well.

Sun Spots

Affordable wireless sensor network nodes for rapid physical UI and ubicomp prototyping, running in Java, from Sun. Haven't worked with them yet, but talked to the Sun folks at their booth at ETech 2008, and the system looks quite promising.

iCubeX by Infusion Systems

A comprehensive toolkit with options for MIDI or Bluetooth connectivity. The more than 50(!) sensors and actuators aren't cheap, but well-made, and the controller can be run in standalone mode after configuring it, allowing for mobile, PC-free scenarios. Windows and Mac OS X are supported.

The Make Controller (formerly Teleo) by MakingThings

MakingThings has stopped selling the Teleo toolkit, and moved to selling the new $150 Make Controller (15% student discount) which has open-source firmware, schematics, and accompanying software tools. Both are USB-based. Several ready-made sensors and actuators are available too.

Wiring (Open Source)

Another open-source toolkit similar to Arduino, around and in active use by several universities and art projects since 2005. The US$60 ATmega128 microcontroller board can run standalone or connected via USB. Software for Mac OS X, Linux and Windows. To quote Nils Beck, one of our former students who used it: "It's relatively cheap, very powerful, and incredibly easy to program, thanks to its Java-based language and easy to use IDE. 40 digital I/O pins, 8 analog inputs (can also be used for digital input), 6 PWM outputs, i2c, serial, USB,..."

Basic Stamp by Parallax, Inc.

The grandfather of hardware interface toolkits. Endless options to choose from, including many different versions and sizes of the controller board (some use PICs, others Ubicom processors). Also, lots of sensors and actuators (you'll even find some at Radio Shack), and Educator Kits. However, it's commercial, closed-source, and more expensive than, say, the Arduino ($50 vs. $4 for a replacement processor), and there is no official Mac OS X support (there's a hack though). It's also showing its age: e.g., it talks to your computer via serial. The basic model is not interrupt-capable, the SX is (but requires burning hardware).

MidiTron by Eroktronix

Eric Singer (of Cyclops fame) presented this at NIME 2007. It looks pretty much like a MakingThings device, but it has 20 terminals that can each be set as digital or analog (pwm), input or output. It is MIDI-based (as opposed to the Make Controller, which uses USB).

Phidgets by Phidgets, Inc.

Phidgets is another comprehensive kit, and one of the earliest physical prototyping toolkits, developing out of a research project in Saul Greenberg's lab at the University of Calgary. The more than 50 sensors and actuators are USB-based (i.e., always need a wired connection to a host PC to work). Support focuses on Windows, but other platforms are available too. They've been used successfully in various HCI classes, by Saul and others, for prototyping.

d.tools by Stanford University

A hardware platform as part of a research project by the Stanford HCI group, similar in design to Arduino and Wiring, which their research software has now been extended to support as well. No ordering of boards or sensors, but the site contains PCB layout files, software, and useful pointers to manufacturers and part suppliers.

Smart-Its by TeCo

Small, wireless sensors, later evolving into even smaller "uPart" particle nodes. More of a research project, with limited commercial availability.

Berkeley Motes, now by CrossBow

Another small wireless sensor module with networking capabilities, the Berkeley Motes are now manufactured by CrossBow Technology, Inc.